Still More Christmas....

After Christmas morning at my parents house, we headed over to Gary's parents to celebrate with them. The girls were getting a bit tired so I don't have as many pictures, but we had a great time catching up with Gary's family-especially his brother Brian, sister-in-law Lisa and their little darling girl Mary Ellen who were all in town from FL.

 Gary and his brother Mike, along with Mike's wife Lindsay and myself surprised my father in law with his own MIZZOU corn hole set. He was so excited and loved it! We even broke it out the next day for a little in door corn hole fun.

Later on, Gary's extended family (on his dad's side) came over to join in on the fun! By this time the girls were exhausted. Brooke fell asleep on my lap-which is unheard of since she was the age of 1 maybe-and Caroline took a quick snooze in the pack-and-play. By the time the four of us got home, we were so tired. I think we may need to re-work our activities next year for the holidays so we can relax a bit more :)

A very JOHNSON Christmas

Next up on the agenda was our annual Johnson Christmas celebration! After we had opened our gifts at home, we headed back over to my parents house with all of my sisters and my brother to open even more gifts! The girls were running a bit low on energy, but (in true Grandpa Johnson form!) they rallied.

The best picture I could get of all five grandkids. It may not be perfect...but don't Jack & Caroline look great??

  

All three boys (Joe, Gary & Matt) received super hero briefs this year from Santa.
Not sure if this is disturbing or not...but Gary did get Captain America who I think is the best.

Caroline LOVES babies...

I think that she wants one for Christmas next year.

Who is more excited about the princess pack??

THANK YOU GOD MOTHER MIMI!
Best.Gift.Ever.

Lily: "WOW...this is awesome!"
Me: "What is it Lily?"
Lily: "I don't know...but it is awesome"

Surprise gift of the day!!
Tracie's idea was to build a corn hole set for Dad...
Gary took to the challenge and built a custom set for Dad..with me contributing to the project with my tracing and painting skills. He LOVED it!

Christmas Morning-Part 1

Santa came!!

Mom was up bright and early Christmas morning at 6:00 a.m. Apparently the rest of the family thought that Christmas was the perfect day to start sleeping in. I knew that I had to keep everyone on schedule, though, so I may (or may not) have encouraged Brooke to wake up around 6:30 a.m. Brooke may (or may not) have followed mom's lead and woken Caroline up...and Dad was then up by default.

 Brooke's favorite gift of the morning-a real Disney princess castle!!

Dad's favorite gift of the day-a real DAD tie!

Christmas Eve

The Christmas celebrating continued the next evening. We get together with my mom's side of the family over at my parents house. This year the crowd was a bit smaller. We usually have around 85 + people..but with the bad weather the crowd was more around the 50 person mark and that made the house seem a bit on the light side. A good time was still had by all and the girls were exhausted by evenings end. I was pretty tired too...and I didn't even have any party punch.

Yes, as you will see in the next few posts-my girls wore their Christmas dresses to all of our Christmas functions. If mom is going to buy you a cute monogrammed dress you are going to get your wear out of it! We  may even were them next year...and the next year as shirts.

PJ's are on and we were headed home to wait for Santa.

Christmas Eve...Eve

On the eve of Christmas eve, we started our holiday celebration with Gary mom's side of the family. There are lots of us (she is the oldest of 12) so it is always a good time. The kids had a blast and Brooke made a new best friend in Gary's youngest cousin Emily. She is 8 years old and, therefore, AWESOME in Brooke's eyes.

At one point, Brooke left us and decided to go to the bathroom all by herself. When I went in there to check on here, she was in the stall chatting loudly with Emily like there were two teenagers hanging out in the bathroom getting ready for a night out. When I asked her how she was doing, she said, "What are you doing in here mom?? I am talking to Emily!!" So sorry Brooke-remind me when you turned 13??

We mad a good effort to get a few pictures of the Fleming cousins...

This may be my favorite.

Merry Christmas!!!

Gifts under the tree

I love this time of the year.

I look forward to Christmas. Spending time with family, laughing, eating, cookie making, Christmas Mass, singing (well....if your related to my mom)-all the traditional things that we do each and every December.

I am also one of those people that actually enjoys the Christmas shopping experience. I love the challenge of trying to find that perfect gift. Sometimes I succeed...sometimes I don't and you end up with a coffee mug that says, "The Buttcracker." This year, though, I have quite a few gifts that I am pretty pumped to give. It is the BEST to see the look on your family members face and know that you totally got them something amazing.

As I was thinking about some of these great gifts that I found this year...I started to think about Christmas past and what fabulous items  had put on my Santa list. Some I received...some I will still be checking under the tree this year for.

How I wanted this beauty. I mean, who wouldn't?? Sadly, she never opened on Christmas morning.
Today she is considered 'vintage.' Mom, if your Ebay still have a few left.

Electronic Dear Diary. Tracie got it. I did not.
Jealous!!!!

Remember these! Yep. I got one. My awesome god-father gave me one and I couldn't have been more thrilled.

Did you love them?? I wanted to be a collector. Sadly, I only had one.

Oh yeah. Doc Martens. I landed these Christmas of 8th grade.
Perfect timing so I could wear these bad boys of my first day of high school.

Don't get me wrong. I know that Christmas is not all about presents and Santa. However, after watching some family videos this past week of our Christmas celebrations, I couldn't help but laugh at the unwrapped gifts. My how time, kids and technology have changed! What did you all want for Christmas as youngins??